An attendee at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner has gone viral for appearing to finish his meal as other guests reacted to gun fire.
The event, which took place inside the ballroom of the Washington Hilton hotel on Saturday, April 25, was shockingly interrupted when a suspect – identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen – opened fire.
Shortly after 8:30 p.m., gun shots rang out at the venue, prompting panic among the reported 2,000 or so guests inside the ballroom. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania, among other senior figures in Trump’s administration, were quickly whisked away by Secret Service agents, while journalists and other guests dove under tables.
In among the chaos, however, there was one man who seemed to be rather less perturbed than everyone else.
As Trump and his cohorts were bundled away from danger, one guest sat close to the stage continued to eat from his plate.
Video footage of the individual in question has naturally garnered attention online, with the clip accumulating over eight million views on X.
“How the hell is he eating when there is chaos?” one X user wrote.
Another wrote: “Guarantee he said ‘im too old for this s***’. Accepted whatever might come.”
The shots came from a suspect who tried to breach a security checkpoint while carrying several weapons, including a shotgun, handgun, and knives. Before being subdued by law enforcement, he was able to fire a shot, striking a Secret Service officer, whose bullet proof vest prevented serious injury.
The shooter has since been named as Cole Thomas Allen, 31, from southern California. As per The Guardian, he has no criminal charges in Los Angeles, though investigators are now assessing a manifesto he reportedly wrote before carrying out the attempted assassination.
Said manifesto is alleged to include a list of targets for the shooting, ranked from highest to lowest. Trump administration officials feature at the top of the list.
President Trump stated his desire for the event – an annual tradition dating back to the 1920s – to be rescheduled within the next 30 days.
“I don’t want to see it be canceled,” he said. “I think it’s really bad for a crazy person to be able to cancel something like this.”
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